Responding to a proposed 9.7-percent tax hike earlier this month, the Schenectady County legislature said Monday that it had made several amendments to County Manager Kathleen Rooney's 2008 budget proposal.

Among those changes included reduction of the tax increase from 9.7 percent to 4.48 percent and elimination of 15 city-funded jobs.

The legislature is also proposing a 2008 Medicaid Fraud Waste and Abuse Reduction Initiative, as well as completion of the Department of Social Services Audit in the upcoming year.

The county has said that the Medicaid program drives up county taxes, despite the fact that it is a state-instituted program.

"If New York state would assume the cost of Medicaid rather than pass it on to counties, we could reduce property taxes in Schenectady County by 50 percent," said legislature chair Susan Savage. "New York is one of only two states in the nation that requires counties to pick up the cost of Medicaid."

As area counties have presented their budgets in recent weeks, they explain that unfunded state mandates are responsible for county tax increases.